One of the things I’ve struggled with in Chinese is finding Chinese songs I find interesting. Most of it is just pop music. It’s OK (no pun intended), but it’s usually not very interesting. There are a lot of ballads (boring), but some dance songs which are at least more energetic. What I’ve been trying to find is Chinese rockers and rappers. Who are the Chinese equivalents of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, or The Clash? Are there punk rockers who sing in Chinese?

Yesterday, I found a website (www.chinese-forums.com) and there was a thread in there about Chinese rock music. One of the posts linked to a Chinese rock video on YouTube, and I found the video above in the Related Videos section.

I can pick out phrases here and there, but nothing more. I’ve found the lyrics somewhere else on the web, so I’ll probably go over them and try to figure out what they mean. Musically, she reminds me a bit of MIA.

The other day I looked on YouTube for a video of Mark Zuckerberg speaking Chinese, since I wanted to find out if he spoke better Chinese than I do (he does). In the related videos section, I saw the video embedded above.

The video is quite humbling because she speaks Chinese very well compared to me. I can understand some of what she’s saying, but not all.

Next week I start my fourth semester of Chinese classes. One thing I’ve learned from past experience is that it’s very easy to forget it, if you don’t keep studying, at least a little bit. To keep 中文 mostly fresh in my mind, I decided to deleted all my flashcards in Anki and started over.

In the classes, we use Integrated Chinese by Cheng & Tsui. As someone who is TESOL certified, it’s pretty good material for college age (and maybe high school age) students. In first semester Chinese (EALC-C131 at IUPUI), we covered chapters 1 – 5 of Integrated Chinese, Level 1, Part 1. In the second semester (EALC-C132), we covered chapters 6 – 10 of that, and chapter 11 of Level 1, Part 2. For the third semester (EALC-C201), which we just finished in December, we covered chapters 12 – 16. Supposing we cover five chapters this semester (in EACL-C202), we finish Level 1, Part 2 and begin on Level 2, Part 1. A syllabus hasn’t been posted yet, so I don’t know for sure.

When I created a new set of 生词卡 (flashcards), I began with the 40 or so radicals at the beginning of IC 1-1, then added the Chinese numerals for 0 through 10, plus 100, 100, and 10000. After that, I started adding the vocabulary from the chapters, finally finishing last night. I don’t know how many card there are, but it’s several hundred, at least.

Aside from trying to keep the Chinese words fresh in my mind, I think it’s probably also good prep for the HSK 3, which I plan to take in March.

I’ve written a page on Using Anki to learn Chinese, because how I use it is a bit different and it might be useful to other learning languages.

Last spring I took the HSK 1 and passed. The HSK (汉语水平考试 Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì) is a test of Chinese language proficiency.

Level 1 is pretty basic. There are 150 vocabulary terms to know, and some listening and reading sections with multiple choice questions. As far as proficiency goes, HSK 1 is the most basic. It’s mainly simple sentences, like “I am a student,” “I am from New York,” etc.

Level 2 is also pretty basic, but it has 300 vocabulary items to know. It also has multiple choice questions for listening and reading sections. I took the HSK 2 a few weeks ago, and will find out my score in January (edit: I passed). When I took the HSK 1, it was a pencil-and-paper test, but when I took the HSK 2, it was a computer based test.

Blogging in Chinese is mainly about preparing myself to take the HSK 3 this coming spring. From what I understand, the HSK Level 3 has a section that requires the test takers to write something. By blogging in Chinese, it forces me to practice writing. HSK 3 has 600 vocabulary items, and the questions are a bit more complex. The topics relate to aspects of daily life, such as travel, shopping, food, clothes, and so on. Not terribly complex, but probably enough to get around in China, such as for a vacation.

HSK 4 has 1200 vocabulary items, HSK 5 has 2500, and the HSK 6 has 5000. People who pass the HSK 5 should be able to read Chinese language newspapers and magazines.

In addition to the HSK, there is the HSKK, which is an oral exam. Last semester, my teacher urged us to consider taking that as well. The HSKK has three levels, none of which I’ve taken yet.

The HSK and HSKK are run by Hanban, which is in Mainland China. The HSK uses Simplified Chinese. There is a similar test in Traditional Chinese that is run by the Taiwanese Ministry of Education. In English, it’s known as the Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language (TOCFL). Since the Chinese curriculum at IUPUI is taught using Simplified Chinese (I think all of the teachers are from Mainland China), I’m taking the HSK, and not the TOCFL. Plus, the HSK is offered locally, while the TOCFL isn’t.

After several months of inactivity, I’ve finally got the blog back up and running, and have done some reorganization. The site has been moved to a new webhost, which has a lot of tools to make it easier to run the site.

The main change to this site is that the Review Haiku will be separate from the blog. When creating an ePub, each haiku is basically an XHTML webpage. To make it easier to create an ePub of Review Haiku in the future, I decided to put each haiku on its own webpage. I used PHP for this mainly to benefit from using templates for the headers and footers, but it should be easy (knock on wood) to use a script to make bulk changes to change the files from PHP to XHTML when making an ePub.

With the Review Haiku separated from the blog, I intend to use the blog mainly… um, as a blog. I’ll probably be blogging a lot about learning Chinese (中文), taking the HSK test, and so on.